


Hand Me Down

by inbox



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Clothing, F/F, Gen, Gen Work, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9710963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: "Hold 'em up for size," he said, pushing the clothes towards her. "Dresses and shirts. Maybe they'll be useful."Sometimes the best way to deal with old memories is to give them a new life in someone else's care.





	

Dalal moved to Novac in the fall of 2287 with her wife in tow. Two winters previous she'd passed through the trade camp in Big Water and met a nice ol' hard-handed gal named Meryl who made her heart thump and her belly flip. When they laid out under the stars and shyly confessed to each other a mutual hankering to ease off the boot leather and settle down somewhere quiet, Dalal's thoughts turned to Novac, and to home.

By the time they made it back to the new territories and took over the motel and fixed the late Jeannie-May's house into a home fit to live in, Dalal was three months along and eyeing the gentle pop of her stomach in the precious enamelled mirror she’d hauled all the way from New Canaan.

It had been a surprise to be in the family way. They’d tried, of course, but she secretly thought it impossible after years of her scrambled cycles from bad food and bad water and endless iodine purges. It was a wonderful shock, and when she informed her wife she’d touched Dalal’s stomach reverently and beamed wide enough that the corners of her eyes crinkled deeper than ever.

The seasons changed and the months ticked by. Dalal spent her days running the Novac front desk with a hand resting on her belly, now hard and proud and full of baby while Meryl oversaw a cheap but thorough renovation of the yard and cabins. There was steady money to be made housing the people who travelled the broken spine of highway 95, and the town welcomed the increase in visitors and their cash.

It was a quiet and uncomplicated life they made together, and together they flourished in the small town.

* * *

 

Boone walked into Novac right when the sun dipped low on the horizon and gave way to the first touch of night chill in the air. He arrived on the tail end of a merchant's caravan, tracking in bootprints of red dirt as he dropped his bags by the motel front counter.

He didn't recognise Dalal at first. In turn she didn't recognise him either, not when he was all ropey and lean with a sad excuse of a beard on his chin and lines worn deep between his brows. When he asked for the key to room 6A she started as if she'd heard a voice from the grave, and damn near spilt her glass of water across her bookkeeping.

Boone pushed his sunglasses above his brows and stared from her hair to her look of astonishment, and all the way down to where her big belly pushed firm against the Dino Dee Lite front counter. He took the keys and mumbled a terse goodnight, and scooped his bag before turning tail.

Dalal thought about knocking on his door once or twice the next morning, just to say howdy and catch up, but she thought better of it when she saw the blinds drawn tight and silence from behind the door.

In lieu of conversation she washed out Meryl’s lunch pail and filled it with fry bread and warm salt beef cooked that afternoon. She set it at his door and rapped her knuckles sharp on the hollow wood - painted two weeks previous with fresh chalk paint, still clean and bright before the morning sun inevitably dulled it - and scurried away as fast as the baby'd let her, feeling a bit foolish all the while.

When Craig appeared the next day he was scrubbed pink and clean shaven, wearing clothes that looked like they'd been savagely pounded clean with soap flakes and elbow grease. He kept away from the crowd at Novac's camp kitchen, opting to lean against a lamp post while pressing flat a slab of charred brahmin steak between two heels of bread.

Meryl swept him into a conversation about wood carving and temperamental Novac plumbing, buoying him along with spaces for his occasional contribution on the subject of bulk washers and the logistics of quickly gathering up a bagful of steel on the rare day the travelling knifeman passed through town with his sharpening wheel in tow.

Dalal said he looked well, and he sucked at his teeth and said he'd been keeping busy.

When they invited him back to their home for a nightcap he demurred for a moment to disappear into the darkness towards the motel. He eventually came back with an armful of clothes and a bottle of golden spiced rum rattling and banging about in Meryl’s lunch pail. Carried it from down south, kept safe in the bottom of his pack in a cocoon of his unused winter jacket. Fella wore out a lot of boot leather over the past few years; trudging everywhere from the snow up north to the long rolling waves sweeping in from the Pacific down south.

The clothes were left in the front room. He waved a hand impatiently in the air when quizzed about them, opting to make a show of breaking the wax on the rum bottle as a distraction.

“Plenty of miles,” said Meryl, setting out two glasses and a mug of dandelion tea. She affectionately ruffled her hand through the greying prickle of Dalal’s hair, pushing against the grain of overgrown stubble. “Familiar story too.”

“Always gonna come home eventually,” he said, and waited politely to take his seat after they'd both seated and settled. “Good thing to look forward to.”

They sat around the kitchen table and played cards, Dalal all the while regaling Meryl with stories about when she and Boone spent a few months outrunning the wildlife and surviving brawling bare knuckle fights with casino goons. She took a sip of rum every now and then to wet her mouth but mostly kept to her mug of stale dandelion tea, content to enjoy the sight of her wife and her old friend get ruddy-cheeked and loud and pound the old formica table in laughter.

It was good to see Boone again. She'd kept a thought for him all these years; always hoped he'd find his feet again and get some life back in his eyes. He was a good enough man at heart when his head wasn't full of noise and his spirit all but dead.

Underneath that hard sad shell he'd been kind to women and soft on children, two traits severely lacking in a lot of men who lived on the frontiers and spent their life looking down a gun barrel. Maybe time had finally done a number on him, taken off all those hard edges and broken his foolish attitude to his future. _Just World_ , Doc Gannon had called it back then. Eye for an eye, karmic retribution, all that brahminshit. Maybe he'd gotten older and softer, just like she'd done. Either way it was good to see him again, tired and alive and sitting across the table and chuckling at Meryl's terrible jokes.

'Round eight Boone excused himself to get some air, and when he returned his arms were full of the clothes he'd carried over that evening.

"Figured there wasn't much use in hanging on to these," he said by way of explanation as he awkwardly heaped the fabric onto the table, narrowly missing her mug of tea. "You're her size."

"Craig's wife passed on," Dalal said by way of explanation to Meryl, and unfolded the shirt on the top of the pile.

"Long time ago," Boone said, his chair scraping across the tile as he took his seat again. "You know."

"That I do," said Meryl. She'd been a widow when she'd met Dalal, long past her grief and hopeful to start her life again. It'd come up in conversation at the dinner tent, Boone expressing genuine interest in how someone had managed to make his ol’ prickly boss finally settle down.

"But I reckon I need to turn in. Early day and all tomorrow. You want some extra caps, Craig? Six AM sharp, we're hauling the plumbing up out from under the courtyard."

Meryl chuckled at Boone's firm refusal - _seen too many sunrises lately, no offence_ \- and drained the last dregs of her rum, leaning over to drop a kiss on Dalal's hair. "I'll leave you two to catch up. Reckon there's a lot more she don't want me to know about her wild days."

"Goodnight you old fool," said Dalal kindly, and watched her close the bedroom door.

"How'd you find a wife to put up with you?"

"Well, I'll be," said Dalal. "Are you making a joke? Craig Boone must've hit his head somewhere and found a sense of humour."

Boone grinned behind his glass, taking her ribbing in stride. The good mood suited him, she thought. He seemed like a whole new person without that black cloud hanging over his head.

"Hold 'em up for size," he said, pushing the clothes towards her. "Dresses and shirts. Maybe they'll be useful."

There were a few items in the bundle he'd given her, NCR dress uniform shirts with the collars rubbed thin, simple yardwork shirts cut for someone with strong shoulders, and dresses that billowed in great shapeless waves of cotton. He reached over and rubbed his thumb along the collar of a particular dress, and it took considerable will to fight the impulse to pat his hand. Instead she took the dress and rubbed the fabric between her fingers, holding it to her neck and letting it drop over the curve of her belly.

The fabric was marked with yellow stains from years left folded and forgotten in his wardrobe. Boone had given it a good scrubbing and airing though, the cotton still damp to the touch and scented with Abraxo. It was cut in a style that hadn't been popular for the well-to-do expecting women in NCR City for the past decade, the front embroidered with flowers and cursed with a collar that buttoned high on the neck. It was hideous in every way, large as a tent and about as fetching, and from the look on his face Boone knew it as well.

"She never much liked it," he said by way of conversation. "Said it itched her neck."

"I bet you picked this out yourself," Dalal said, smoothing the fabric and smiling at him. "Bet you got dazzled by one of the rag traders and their ritzy city fashion and picked it out yourself."

"Yeah," said Boone, and he almost smiled back. "Not much out there for a woman as broad as a barn."

"You've got some cheek." She folded it and set it back on the pile, avoiding the urge to grab him by the chin and inspect him like a prize calf. Hell, as if he needed Dalal herself to double-check his motives and make sure he wasn't making a mistake. She never gave him enough credit back then, and old habits died hard. "I can fix you up with some caps tomorrow."

"Don't bother. They're old rags, but better all of her clothes get some wear."

"Mhmm." Dalal silently debated over how best to articulate her thoughts, that _you might need these some day_. "I'll look after them."

"Hell, cut 'em into spare cloth for all I care. They're yours now." His voice was soft. No macho bravado.

"Rubbish. I'll wear 'em until I pop, then there's a handful of ladies who'll all be showing by the time I'm done with Carla's clothes." Dalal grinned at him and decided to pat his hand anyway. "By my reckoning you've just clothed half the women of Novac. Think any of them will name their babies in your honour?"

"Now you're dribbling brahminshit," he said, and tipped his glass up to chase the last dregs of rum. "Change the subject."

"Fine, fine," she said, and put her feet up on Meryl's chair. Her ankles ached after a day standing behind that motel counter, swollen and sore and aching. Only a month to go, then she figured she'd be too busy keeping a squalling baby happy to worry about her feet. She pointed her toes and took her mug of cold tea in her hands, and gave him a warm smile.

"So tell me what you've been up to all these years, Craig. I want to know how you've been."

* * *

 

Craig Boone left Novac a week later. He shook Meryl's hand and pecked Dalal on the cheek, and said he'd be back in a month when the water caravans passed back through the Mojave Outpost. A couple of months passed, then more and more; the seasons going from cool to warm and cool again without Boone ever making good on his promise to drop by again.

Dalal hoped he’d settled somewhere and found himself some big kind fella who made his eyes light up and helped him forget all about Novac and the memories he kept locked up there. A foolish and romantic hope, but it was more of a comfort than the thought that Craig died somewhere lonesome and distant, the victim of an ambush or his own foolishness or worse.

Meryl packed up Craig's few belongings and carefully scratched off the name BOONE from the key to room 6A. She filled an old suitcase with his few clothes and books and a few faded pictures of a pretty woman with big dark eyes and a crooked smile, and stored it under their daughter's bed. _Just in case_ , she said, and took Dalal's hand and kissed her knuckles. Maybe he'd come back for them one day. No harm in waiting, just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted a long time ago as 'Old Rags', but I'm on a kick of rescuing my ancient old stories and removing the then-mandatory background het and making the wasteland gay again.


End file.
